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New Author
Interviews |
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Paul Auster
A video interview with Paul Auster about his 2009 book Invisible
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Malla Nunn
A brief but revealing Q&A with Malla Nunn, author of A Beautiful Place to Die, the first in a new series set in 1950s South Africa starring Detective Emmanuel Cooper.
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Kate DiCamillo
Kate DiCamillo and Yoko Tanaka, the illustrator of The Magician's Elephant, discuss the writing and illustrating of the book. In a separate Q&A, Kate discusses The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.
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Brigid Pasulka
Brigid Pasulka explains why she wrote her first novel, A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True, which is set in Poland during World War II, and in Kraków 50 years later.
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November
Previews
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October 30, 2009
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Next
Issue:
On November 11 we'll send you "BookBrowse
Highlights: November Recommendations"
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Hello,
In this issue I invite you to preview eleven
notable books publishing in November.
But first, please take a moment to find out what BookBrowse members think of
one of the recently published books they've been
reading for "First Impressions":
The Book of Illumination
by Mary Ann
Winkowski, and enter to win a copy of
long time bestseller
Sarah's Key
by Tatiana de Rosnay (we have 10 copies to give away).
Best regards
Davina Morgan-Witts
Editor, BookBrowse.com
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First Impressions
 The
Book of Illumination: A Novel from the Ghost Files
by Mary Ann Winkowski
Publisher: Three Rivers
Publication Date: 10/06/2009
Novels, 320 pages
Number of reader reviews: 16
Readers' consensus:
From the Book Jacket
The criminal underworld meets the spiritual
otherworld in this thrilling debut collaboration
between the inspiration for television's The
Ghost Whisperer and an award-winning
writer/director. Paperback original.
Anza O'Malley is in most ways a typical single mom.
She lives a happy, busy life with her five-year-old
son in Cambridge, Massachusetts, juggling the joys
and challenges of life as a doting parent and a
freelance bookbinder. But there is more to Anza than
meets the "ungifted" eye: she can see and speak with
ghosts.
Although she's been solving cold cases for the
police for years, Anza has been hoping to focus her
energies on her son and her bookbinding career. But
when an exquisite and priceless illuminated
manuscript is stolen from the Boston Athenaeum, and
when its desecration spurs the appearance of some
very unhappy spirits, Anza can neither look nor walk
away. With an unlikely trio of ghosts by her side -
a charming butler and two medieval monks - Anza
leads us on an urgent journey through Boston's
winding, cobbled streets to uncover a trail of
deceit, danger, and ghoulish intrigue.
BookBrowse Members Say ...
"The story and characters are wonderfully
written and came alive for me. I actually wished
that I had family and friends like the ones here!
The mystery had enough red herrings that it made it
difficult to figure out who really stole the
manuscript and the writing made me think that
perhaps I should rethink the existence of ghosts
living among us. A very fine start to what looks to
be a new series. I can't wait for another." - Dianne
S. (Shelton, CT).
"A clever and "spirited" mystery about ghosts and an
ancient book that takes place in modern Cambridge,
MA. .... The book is also an interesting
introduction to the art of bookbinding." - Penny N.
(Saginaw, MI).
"The Book of Illumination was a great read
with well-formed characters. I quite enjoyed it and
would recommend it as a must read. I look forward to
more fiction from, Mary Ann Winkowski and Maureen
Foley." - Crystal F. (CA).
"I highly recommend this book to anyone. If you
enjoy thrillers and mysteries you have to read this
book, throw in the paranormal and you have a very
enjoyable read. I just couldn't put it down. It was
fun and refreshing. Perfect ghost story." - Rosario
D. (South El Monte, CA).
Read
all the Reviews
Buy
at Amazon
Compare
prices at AddAll
First Impressions
is just one of the many benefits of a
BookBrowse membership.
Although there is no guarantee, most members who
choose to take part receive about two to three books
each year to read and review, entirely free of
charge. Sadly, due to the cost and logistics of
shipping overseas, the publishers who support First
Impressions are only able to ship to members who are
resident in the USA.
|
Win
Sarah's Key by Tatiana
de Rosnay.
Published in paperback: Sep 2008
Enter the Giveaway
Discussion Guide
Excerpt
Buy at Amazon
Compare prices at AddAll
From the Jacket Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a
ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her
family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv'
roundup, but not before she locks her younger
brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment,
thinking that she will be back within a few
hours.
Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th
anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked
to write an article about this black day in
France's past. Through her contemporary
investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of
long-hidden family secrets that connect her to
Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace
the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in
the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she
probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question
her own place in France, and to reevaluate her
marriage and her life.
Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly
subtle, compelling portrait of France under
occupation and reveals the taboos and silence
that surround this painful episode.
Soon to be a major motion picture!
Media Reviews
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. It beautifully conveys
Julia's conflicting loyalties, and makes Sarah's
trials so riveting, her innocence so absorbing,
that the book is hard to put down.
Library Journal
Starred Review. Masterly and compelling, it
is not something that readers will quickly
forget. Highly recommended.
Sacramento Bee
Exceptional, emotional, and compelling...
Sarah Galvin, The Bookstore Plus, Lake
Placid, NY
Sarah's Key is told from both the
perspective of an 10-year-old girl whose family
is rounded up during the Vel D'Hiv in France in
1942 and an American who presently lives in
Paris. The heartbreak is real, the love is true,
and the need to find out how their two lives are
connected made this one of my absolute
favorites!
Roberta, The Book Stall at Chestnut Court
(Front Line, Newsletter)
I was overwhelmed by a novel that I had
missed when it first came our way - Sarah's
Key. It is a page-turner about World War II,
the Holocaust and contemporary Paris. I couldn't
put it down.
10 people will each win a paperback copy of
Sarah's Key.
This giveaway is open to residents of the USA
and Canada, unless you are a BookBrowse member,
in which case you are eligible to win wherever
you might live.
Enter the Giveaway
|
One Month Free Membership
What you see for free in these emails is a
fraction of what BookBrowse has to offer. For
just $29.95 you could be enjoying a year of good
reading about good reading!
Start your one month free trial now
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and librarians access to all that BookBrowse has to
offer, from any computer, anywhere, anytime.
Librarians interested in finding out more about
subscriptions, please visit:
bookbrowse.com/lib
or, better still, join us at our next
webinar - November 4, 3pm ET.
|
Preview - Narrative History
A Rainbow in the Night: The
Tumultuous Birth of South Africa
by Dominique Lapierre
November 3. 304 pages
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN-13: 9780306818479
Critics' consensus:
Book Description: In 1652 a small group of
Dutch farmers landed on the southernmost tip of
Africa. Sent by the powerful Dutch India Company,
their mission was simply to grow vegetables and
supply ships rounding the cape. The colonists,
however, were convinced by their strict Calvinist
faith that they were among God's "Elect," chosen to
rule over the continent. Their saga-bloody,
ferocious, and fervent-would culminate three
centuries later in one of the greatest tragedies of
history: the establishment of a racist regime in
which a white minority would subjugate and victimize
millions of blacks. Called apartheid, it was
a poisonous system that would only end with the
liberation from prison of one of the moral giants of
our time, Nelson Mandela.
A Rainbow in the Night is Dominique
Lapierre's epic account of South Africa's tragic
history and the heroic men and women-famous and
obscure, white and black, European and African-who
have, with their blood and tears, brought to life
the country that is today known as the Rainbow
Nation.
BookBrowse Review
A fast moving, and highly recommended, narrative
history of South Africa by the author of City of
Joy. Covering the early history of South Africa
in broad brushstrokes Lapierre spends less time on
the early historic details themselves and more on
how they impacted the psyche of the Boer people over
the following centuries - events that directly
influenced the rise of the apartheid movement (such
as the Boers' believe that they were the chosen
people and South Africa was their biblically
promised land).
Once he gets to more recent history, Lapierre slows
the pace to focus more on individual stories of the
heroes and villains of apartheid including very
nasty pieces of work such as Dr Wouter Basson, head
of South Africa's chemical and biological warfare
program (the 'war' in question being against South
Africa's own black population); and the activities
of Eschel Rhoodie, South Africa's public relations
king who, with the blessing of prime minister John
Vorster bought the unconditional support of
politicians and news agencies in Europe and the USA
with his "small suitcase full of green bills". Of
course, Nelson Mandela and other internationally
known activists are covered extensively, as is
Mandela's wife, Winnie, who suffered almost as badly
at the hands of the white administration as her
husband; but time is also spent on less know people
such as Helen Lieberman, a white speech therapist
who, despite huge risk to herself and her family,
gave aid to black township communities during the
worst of the troubles, and still continues her work
today.
Experts on South Africa will undoubtedly find
Lapierre's book insufficient due to its lack of
exhaustive historical detail; but for the rest of us
and, I hope, generations of South African children
to come, this is a truly inspiring and enlightening
book.
If you need more of a reason to buy it, Dominique
Lapierre and his wife, also named Dominique, give
all the royalties from his books to the nonprofit
organization Action Aid for the Children of Lepers
in Calcutta. Since its foundation in 1982, the
foundation has cured 1 million tuberculosis
patients; and rescued, treated and educated about
20,000 children suffering from leprosy and/or
physical and mental handicaps. In addition to many
other projects, they've built over 100 schools, dug
600 wells, distributed over 3 million dollars in
micro-loans, and launched 4 hospital boats in the
Ganges delta. More about the foundation's work at
cityofjoyaid.org.
Buy at Amazon
Compare prices at AddAll
This
is one of 89 November books previewed in the latest
membership edition of "BookBrowse Previews"
published in October.
|
Preview - Novel
The Lacuna: A Novel
by Barbara Kingsolver
November 1. 528 pages
Publisher: Harper
ISBN-13: 9780060852573
Critics' consensus:
Book Description: In her most
accomplished novel, Barbara Kingsolver takes us
on an epic journey from the Mexico City of
artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to the
America of Pearl Harbor, FDR, and J. Edgar
Hoover. The Lacuna is a poignant story of
a man pulled between two nations as they invent
their modern identities.
 Prepublication
Reviews:
"Starred Review. [Kingsolver] masterfully
resurrects a dark period in American history
with the assured hand of a true literary
artist." - Publishers Weekly Pick of the Week
"A richly satisfying portrait of Mexico gives
way to a preachy, padded and predictable
chronicle of Red Scare America." - Kirkus
Reviews
"...the novel can be slow going, but the final
section ... builds to a stunningly moving
coda..." - Booklist
"As in The Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver
perfects the use of multiple points of view ...
This is her most ambitious, timely, and powerful
novel yet. Well worth the wait." - Library
Journal
More information on Barbara Kingsolver
Full jacket description, excerpt and more at
BookBrowse
Buy at Amazon
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This is one of 89 November books previewed in
the latest
membership edition of "BookBrowse Previews"
published in October.
|
Preview - Novel
La's Orchestra Saves the
World: A Novel
by Alexander McCall Smith
December 8. 304 pages
Publisher: Pantheon Books
ISBN-13: 9780307378385
Critics' consensus:
Book Description: It is 1939. Lavender-La
to her friends - decides to flee London, not
only to avoid German bombs but also to escape
the memories of her shattered marriage. The
peace and solitude of the small town she settles
in are therapeutic ... at least at first. As the
war drags on, in need of some diversion and to
boost the town's morale, La organizes an amateur
orchestra, drawing musicians from the village
and the local RAF base. Among the strays she
corrals is Feliks, a shy, proper Polish refugee
who becomes her prized recruit - and the object
of feelings she thought she'd put away forever.
Does La's orchestra save the world? The people
who come to hear it think so. But what will
become of it after the war is over? And what
will become of La herself? And of La's heart?
Prepublication Reviews:
"This book is unlike anything else in McCall
Smith's work. It is at times beautifully precise
and psychologically acute, at others hurried or
in pursuit of rather meaningless sub-plots. Its
emotional depths may disconcert some of his huge
fan base, but also give them unexpected
pleasure." - The Independent (UK)
"As love stories go, this is more Brief
Encounter than Captain Correlli's
Mandolin. La is an excellent recreation of a
woman of her time, and as we reach the book's
final full stop it becomes essential to return
to that cryptic beginning to fully savour the
story's resonance and depth." - The Scotsman
"[T]he characters are gauze-thin and the plot
meanders along like a country lane." - The
Observer (UK)
"If you enjoy a meditative, amusing and
predictable sort of novel then you'll pass an
enjoyable couple of hours with La's Orchestra,
but like La herself, the book sits alone and
awkward, unsure of its rightful place." -
Scotland on Sunday
"While the understated prose appeals, La just
isn't as interesting a creation as the author's
two female sleuths...." - Publishers Weekly
More information on Alexander McCall Smith
Buy at Amazon
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This is one of 89 November books previewed in
the latest
membership edition of "BookBrowse Previews"
published in October.
|
Preview - Historical Fiction
The Red Velvet Turnshoe
by Cassandra Clark
November 24. 288 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur
ISBN-13: 9780312537364
Critics' consensus:
Book Description: In the midst of a long,
bleak winter in the year 1383, flooding brought
famine, famine brought disease, and The Black
Death visited town after town.
Into this watery world, against a background of
plague and the turmoil of the Hundred Years'
War, a brave and brilliant nun, Abbess
Hildegard, embarks on a quest for a precious
relic, the Cross of Constantine.
Strong-willed and independent, she will need
remarkable skills to survive. For with the
English Crown at stake, there are many who want
her mission to fail-and one, above all, who
plans a deadly revenge.
Prepublication Reviews:
"Starred Review. The author paints an authentic
picture of late medieval life...enough questions
remain at the end to leave readers eagerly
anticipating the next installment." - Publishers
Weekly
"I found this really engrossing storyline a real
joy to read. The brilliantly researched
historical background really transports you back
into the 14th century. The author uses technical
words from the period (there is a glossary at
the back) to really add to the gripping
atmospheric detail. ... I will have no
hesitation in including it in my top five best
reads of 2009." - Eurocrime.co.uk
"Clark's worldly nun has a degree of freedom
other women of the period wouldn't have enjoyed,
and her arduous journey across the Alps is
presented in convincing detail; the travellers
wear horn masks to protect their eyes from the
snowy light. Hildegard's status gives her access
to the most powerful men of the period, few of
whom share her compassion, making her the moral
centre of a world in turmoil. Clark's Abbess of
Meaux series has echoes of Sansom's novels, but
her protagonist is warmer and less embittered."
- Sunday Times (UK)
Note:
Cassandra Clark, who lives in London, introduced
Abbess Hildegard in her first novel, Hangman
Blind.
More reviews at BookBrowse
Buy at Amazon
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This is one of 89 November books previewed in
the latest
membership edition of "BookBrowse Previews"
published in October.
|
Preview - Thriller
The Long Division
by Derek Nikitas
October 27. 320 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur
ISBN-13: 9780312363987
Critics' consensus:
Book Description: An Atlanta
house-cleaner flees her nowhere life to reunite
with the son she gave up for adoption. The
teenage boy joins his long-lost mother on an
unlawful road trip that proves how much they
both have to lose by finding each other.
Elsewhere, a deputy must track down the shooter
in a drug-related double murder before other
investigators discover the deputy's illicit ties
to the case. The killer is an unbalanced college
kid hunted by vengeful drug dealers and the
police, haunted by loves both dead and for
bidden. When the renegade mother and son arrive,
past sins and present gambits will ensnare them
in the violent endgame between the deputy and
the desperate killer.
Prepublication Reviews:
"Starred Review. Nikitas effectively picks up
and drops each thread. Beautifully realized
characterizations power complex story lines that
meet and connect this disparate group with the
inevitability of Greek tragedy." - Publishers
Weekly
"Starred Review. Nikitas is a master craftsman
of both plot and prose, merging gritty,
evocative description with sharply drawn
characters in a staccato style that includes
scenes that end in the middle of a thought." -
Library Journal
"An elegantly written second novel ( Pyres,
2007) so full of hopelessly lost people that
readers should be warned: Depression may ensue."
- Kirkus Reviews
"The cautious prose gives the proceedings a
literary, if sometimes overwrought, weight, but
that shouldn't stop anyone from dying to know
where this brutal road trip will end." -
Booklist
Note:
Derek Nikitas teaches creative writing at
Eastern Kentucky University. Pyres, his
first novel, was an Edgar nominee.
Buy at Amazon
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This is one of 89 November books previewed in
the latest
membership edition of "BookBrowse Previews"
published in October.
|
Preview - Sci-Fi
The Devil's Alphabet
by Daryl Gregory
November 24. 400 pages
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN-13: 9780345501172
Critics' consensus:
Book Description: From Daryl Gregory, whose
Pandemonium
was one of the most exciting debut novels in memory,
comes an astonishing work of soaring imaginative
power that breaks new ground in contemporary
fantasy.
Switchcreek was a normal town in eastern Tennessee
until a mysterious disease killed a third of its
residents and mutated most of the rest into
monstrous oddities. Then, as quickly and
inexplicably as it had struck, the disease-dubbed
Transcription Divergence Syndrome (TDS) - vanished,
leaving behind a population divided into three new
branches of humanity: giant gray-skinned argos,
hairless seal-like betas, and grotesquely obese
charlies.
Paxton Abel Martin was fourteen when TDS struck,
killing his mother, transforming his preacher father
into a charlie, and changing one of his best
friends, Jo Lynn, into a beta. But Pax was one of
the few who didn't change. He remained as normal as
ever. At least on the outside
Having fled shortly after the pandemic, Pax now
returns to Switchcreek fifteen years later,
following the suicide of Jo Lynn. What he finds is a
town seething with secrets, among which murder may
well be numbered. But there are even darker - and
far weirder - mysteries hiding below the surface
that will threaten not only Pax's future but the
future of the whole human race.
Prepublication Reviews:
"Starred Review. A wide variety of believable
characters, a well-developed sense of place and some
fascinating scientific speculation will earn this
understated novel an appreciative audience among
fans of literary SF." - Publishers Weekly
"As involving as any mystery, this tale calls to
mind both the groundbreaking work of Philip K. Dick
and the universal appeal of Ray Bradbury." - Library
Journal
"The plot sometimes meanders, but the talented
author has a wonderful eye for detail, and his
descriptions of how the horrific mutations have
affected every aspect of small-town life are both
compelling and creepy. Evokes the best of Stephen
King: Gregory is a writer to watch." - Kirkus
Reviews
More about Daryl Gregory at BookBrowse
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This
is one of 89 November books previewed in the latest
membership edition of "BookBrowse Previews"
published in October.
|
Preview - Young Adults
The Brothers Story by
Katherine Sturtevant
November 10. 288 pages
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
ISBN-13: 9780374309923
Critics' consensus:
Book Description: Teenage twins Kit and
Christy have grown up amid grinding poverty in their
Essex village. As Christy has been 'simple' from
birth, Kit is literally his brother's keeper. But
the latest hardships visited upon their country home
by the Great Frost of 1683-84 bring Kit to
frustration and despair, and he abandons Christy to
make his way to London, seeking to better himself.
There he finds work as an apprentice to a struggling
artist and much else to take his mind off what he
has left behind. But the time comes when he can no
longer ignore the problem of his brother.
A fascinating portrait of a young person struggling
to balance family and freedom, The Brothers Story
is also a frank depiction of Restoration London
in its bawdy, raucous glory.
Prepublication Reviews:
"Packed with authentic period detail, this is a
lively adventure that merits a sequel." - Horn Book
"Starred Review. Inclusion of a few ribald period
verses and Kit's mildly racy sexual encounters mark
this solid, engrossing effort for a teen audience."
- Kirkus Reviews
"Starred Review. Sturtevant's book is not only a
stunning story but a challenging and deeply
satisfying work of social conscience." - Booklist
Note:
Katherine Sturtevant has previously written At
the Sign of the Star, a Booklist Editors'
Choice, and its sequel, A True and Faithful
Narrative, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults,
among other accolades. The author lives in Berkeley,
California.
Buy at Amazon
Compare prices at AddAll
This
is one of 89 November books previewed in the latest
membership edition of "BookBrowse Previews"
published in October.
|
Preview - Memoir
Cherries in Winter: My
Family's Recipe for Hope in Hard Times by
Suzan Colon
November 3. 224 pages
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN-13: 9780385532525
Critics' consensus:
Book Description: What is the secret to
finding hope in hard times?
When Suzan Colón was laid off from her dream job at
a magazine during the economic downturn of 2008, she
needed to cut her budget way, way back, and that
meant home cooking. Her mother suggested, "Why don't
you look in Nana's recipe folder?" In the basement,
Suzan found the tattered treasure, full of
handwritten and meticulously typed recipes, peppered
with her grandmother Matilda's commentary in the
margins. Reading it, Suzan realized she had found
something more than a collection of recipes-she had
found the key to her family's survival through hard
times.
Suzan began re-creating Matilda's "sturdy food"
recipes for baked pork chops and beef stew, and Aunt
Nettie's clam chowder made with clams dug up by
Suzan's grandfather Charlie in Long Island Sound.
And she began uncovering the stories of her
resilient family's past. Taking inspiration from
stylish, indomitable Matilda, who was the sole
support of her family as a teenager during the Great
Depression (and who always answered "How are you?"
with "Fabulous, never better!"), and from dashing,
twice-widowed Charlie, Suzan starts to approach her
own crisis with a sense of wonder and gratitude. It
turns out that the gift to survive and thrive
through hard times had been bred in her bones all
along.
Cherries in Winter is an irresistible gem of
a book. It makes you want to cook, it makes you want
to know your own family's stories, and, above all,
it makes you feel rich no matter what.
Prepublication Reviews:
"A charming, wry and ultimately satisfying memoir of
food, family and overcoming hard times." - Shelf
Awareness
"The narrative has ample Working Girl spunk and
shifts deftly if quickly among stories and decades
and geographies." - Publishers Weekly
"Delicious. Delectable. Truthful, funny, and
poignant. Like a great recipe, Suzan Colón's
Cherries in Winter is a keeper and a treat to
share with those you love." - Adriana Trigiani,
bestselling author of Big Stone Gap and
Very Valentine
More reviews at BookBrowse
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This
is one of 89 November books previewed in the latest
membership edition of "BookBrowse Previews"
published in October.
|
Preview - Current Affairs
Eating Animals by
Jonathan Safran Foer
November 2. 352 pages
Publisher: Little Brown & Company
ISBN-13: 9780316069908
Critics' consensus:
Book Description: Jonathan Safran Foer spent
much of his teenage and college years oscillating
between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of
fatherhood - facing the prospect of having to make
dietary choices on a child's behalf - his casual
questioning took on an urgency His quest for answers
ultimately required him to visit factory farms in
the middle of the night, dissect the emotional
ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe
some of his most primal instincts about right and
wrong.
Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature,
science, memoir and his own detective work,
Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use
to justify our eating habits - from folklore to pop
culture to family traditions and national myth - and
how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting.
Marked by Foer's profound moral ferocity and
unvarying generosity, as well as the vibrant style
and creativity that made his previous books,
Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud
and Incredibly Close, widely loved, Eating
Animals is a celebration and a reckoning, a
story about the stories we've told-and the stories
we now need to tell.
Prepublication Reviews:
"The everyday horrors of factory farming are evoked
so vividly, and the case against the people who run
the system presented so convincingly, that anyone
who, after reading Foer's book, continues to consume
the industry's products must be without a heart, or
impervious to reason, or both." - J.M. Coetzee
"Eating Animals is part personal journey,
part modern muckraking and a surprisingly candid and
empathetic book on food. Foer doesn't preach but
instead invites us to have a conversation with
family farmers and factory farmers, animal activists
and slaughterhouse workers. His book is important
not because he has all the answers (he often
acknowledges his own uncertainty), but because he
asks the right questions and makes it impossible for
us not to ask them too." - Huffington Post
More reviews, & info on Jonathan Safran Foer
Buy at Amazon
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This
is one of 89 November books previewed in the latest
membership edition of "BookBrowse Previews"
published in October.
|
Preview
- Current Affairs/Travel
Waiting on a Train: The
Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service--A Year
Spent Riding across America
by James McCommons
November 6. 272 pages
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN-13: 9781603580649
Critics' consensus:
Book Description: During the tumultuous year
of 2008 - when gas prices reached $4 a gallon,
Amtrak set ridership records, and a commuter train
collided with a freight train in
California-journalist James McCommons spent a year
on America's trains, talking to the people who ride
and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak
system. Organized around these rail journeys,
Waiting on a Train is equal parts travel
narrative, personal memoir, and investigative
journalism.
Prepublication Reviews:
Attention! Readers of travel memoir, of
investigative reporting, those seeking to understand
America today, even devotees of fiction of the
American journey-heck, simply of fine writing!
Reward: The pleasure of reading prose that has the
shimmer, strength, and authenticity that our
railroads can still inspire and that they may yet
attain again." - Library Journal Editor's Pick
"Like William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways
before it, James McCommons' Waiting on a Train
is a celebration of America's past and a hopeful
prescription for its future. It is one of those rare
books that will change the way you see the world, a
fascinating and engaging tale of how this nation's
infatuation with the automobile all but destroyed a
once glorious passenger rail system. If you are not
already a rail lover, you will be by the time you
finish this book. You will want to pack your bags
and hop aboard. Waiting on a Train is an important
story thoroughly reported and well told." - John
Grogan, author of Marley & Me
Full description & more reviews at BookBrowse
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- Current Affairs
The Spirit Level: Why Greater
Equality Makes Societies Stronger
by Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett
December 22. 352 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN-13: 9781608190362
Critics' consensus:
Book Description: It is well established that
in rich societies the poor have shorter lives and
suffer more from almost every social problem. Now a
groundbreaking book, based on thirty years'
research, takes an important step past this idea.
The Spirit Level shows that there is one common
factor that links the healthiest and happiest
societies: the degree of equality among their
members. Not wealth; not resources; not culture,
climate, diet, or system of government. Furthermore,
more-unequal societies are bad for almost everyone
within them - the well-off as well as the poor.
The remarkable data assembled in The Spirit Level
reveals striking differences, not only among the
nations of the first world but even within America's
fifty states. Almost every modern social problem -
ill-health, violence, lack of community life, teen
pregnancy, mental illness - is more likely to occur
in a less-equal society. This is why America, by
most measures the richest country on earth, has per
capita shorter average lifespan, more cases of
mental illness, more obesity, and more of its
citizens in prison than any other developed nation.
Prepublication Reviews:
"This is a book with a big idea, big enough to
change political thinking...In half a page [The
Spirit Level] tells you more about the pain of
inequality than any play or novel could." - Sunday
Times (UK)
"The authors point out that the life-diminishing
results of valuing growth above equality in rich
societies can be seen all around us. Inequality
causes shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives; it
increases the rate of teenage pregnancy, violence,
obesity, imprisonment and addiction; it destroys
relationships between individuals born in the same
society but into different classes; and its function
as a driver of consumption depletes the planet's
resources..." - The Guardian (UK)
"This book communicates a relevant and powerful
message for our times. It suggests that we have
sought to explain our 'broken economy' on the
behaviour of the rich and our 'broken society' on
the behaviour of the poor - and sets out to show
that the truth is that both the broken society and
the broken economy resulted from the growth in
inequality." - The Irish Times
Full book jacket and more reviews at BookBrowse
Buy at Amazon
Compare prices at AddAll
This
is one of 89 November books previewed in the latest
membership edition of "BookBrowse Previews"
published in October.
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